15 die - including 13 children - in Thai smash involving bus, lorry

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At least 15 people, including 13 children, were killed when a bus carrying students on a trip to the seaside collided with a lorry in eastern Thailand yesterday, police said.

The smash is the latest in a series of deadly accidents involving buses in Thailand, where roads are among the most dangerous in the world.

Forty-seven others were injured in the pre-dawn accident in Prachinburi province. It involved a double-decker bus and an 18-wheel truck, the authorities said.

The students, aged around 10 to 14 years old, were heading to the resort city of Pattaya from the northeastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima.

Twenty-three of those hurt are in hospital with injuries including broken arms and legs, the Public Health Ministry said.

We’re not ruling out the possibility that the driver might have been asleep

POLICE OFFICER ANUKARN THAMVIJARN

A row of bodies covered by sheets was laid out by the side of the wrecked bus, whose top deck was crushed on one side.

Police said the bus driver had fled the scene of the crash - a relatively common occurrence in Thailand, where safety standards are generally poor. The cause of the accident has not yet been established but the authorities suspect human error or a mechanical problem.

"We suspect there might have been a problem with the brakes, because the bus looked old," Police Lieutenant Colonel Anukarn Thamvijarn said. "But we're not ruling out the possibility that the driver might have been asleep."

Another double-decker bus carrying male students from the same school was following the girls' bus, but it was not involved in the accident.

A recent report by the World Health Organisation said Thailand saw some 38.1 road deaths per 100,000 people in 2010 - behind only the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean and the island of Niue in the South Pacific.

That compares with an average of 18.5 in Southeast Asia as a whole.

Yesterday's accident happened on a narrow stretch of road that cannot be widened because it cuts through a national park, said Nuttapong Boontob of the non-profit Thailand Accident Research Centre.

"The road is always busy with big trucks as it links the northeastern region and the eastern seaboard where there are many industrial estates," he said.

Roughly 60 per cent of traffic accidents in Thailand are caused by human error, according to Nuttapong, with poor road and vehicle conditions posing additional hazards.

Bus operators are required to provide seat belts but passengers are not obliged to use them.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: